Assessing critical gaps in COVID-19 testing capacity: the case of delayed results in Ecuador.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Testing is crucial for COVID-19 response and management, however, WHO's preparedness index omits estimations of actual testing capabilities, which influence the ability to contain, mitigate and clinically manage infectious diseases. With one of the highest excess death rates globally, Ecuador had a comparatively low number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which may have been influenced by limited availability of data for decision-making due to low laboratory capacity.

Methods

We examine de-identified data on 55,063 individuals with suspected COVID-19 between February 27 and April 30, 2020 included in the RT-PCR testing database collected by the Ministry of Health. Processing times and rates per province, and the number of pending tests, were tallied cumulatively. We a

SUBMITTER: Torres I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8013207 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature